Ken MacLeod was born on Stornoway, Isle of Lewis in Fife, Scotland. He was educated at Glasgow University (BSc, zoology) and at Brunel University (MPhil).

MacLeod grew up on the Isle of Lewis and in Green, Scotland, went to high school with Iain M. Banks, and worked at a variety of manual and clerical jobs while completing his education. He also carried out research in biomechanics at Brunel University, and later worked as a computer analyst and programmer.

He was a SF fan when growing up, and has been a full-time writer since 1997. His first SF novel was The Star Fraction (1995). His “Fall Revolution” sequence consists of four linked but independent SF novels. In addition The Star Fraction, others in the sequence are The Stone Canal (1996), The Cassini Division (1998), and The Sky Road (1999).

Cydonia (1998) is a young adult novel in “The Web” shared-world series; and the three novels in his “Engines of Light” series, Cosmonaut Keep (2000), Dark Light (2001), and Engine City (2002), are space operas based on interplanetary politics.

A witty, offbeat novella, The Human Front [with an introduction by Iain M. Banks] was published in a limited edition in 2001 and won the Sidewise Award.

The Light Ages, a fantasy novel set in a parallel England where the discovery of “aether” has changed the world by bringing about the Third Age of Industry, appeared in 2003. The standalone novel Newton’s Wake, a far future space opera concerning space settlers and AI war machines, appeared in 2004, both in U.S. and U.K. editions. Learning the World (2005), The Restoration Game (2010), Intrusion (2012), and Descent are his more recent novels.

Interviews with MacLeod have appeared in the Spring/Summer issue of the fanzineNova Express and in the October, 2000, issue (#477) of Locus (“Morality, Mortality, Mentality”). A more recent interview was in the September, 2006, issue of Locus (“Politics & SF”).